jungle_book_shonen_mowgli_fanfictionfandomcom-20200213-history
Rikki-Tikki-Tavi's Origin, Chapter two
Chapter two of Rikki-Tikki-Tavi's Origin. Plot If you read the old books of natural history, you will find they say that when the mongoose fights the snake and happens to get bitten, he runs off and eats some herb that cures him. That is not true. The victory is only a matter of quickness of eye and quickness of foot: snake’s blow against mongoose’s jump, and as no eye can follow the motion of a snake’s head when it strikes, this makes things much more wonderful than any magic herb. Rikki-tikki knew he was a young, inexperienced mongoose, and it made him all the more pleased to think that he had managed to escape a blow from behind. It gave him confidence in himself, and when Teddy came running down the path, Rikki-tikki was ready to be petted. But just as Teddy was stooping, something wriggled a little in the dust, and a tiny voice said “be careful, I am death!”, it was a Common krait known as Karait, he was taking a dirt-nap when Teddy's footsteps resonated through the ground and awoke him, his kind are nocturnal, which was the reason why he was sleeping in the first place, and while small he and his species was just as dangerous to humans as the cobras are, which earned them a place among the "Big Four" of India's deadliest snakes (besides the cobras, Russell's viper and saw-scaled viper), Rikki, upon seeing the smaller snake, got to his feet and his eyes turn red again, and he danced up to Karait with the peculiar rocking, swaying motion like the rest of his kind, it looks very funny, but it is so perfectly balanced a gait that you can fly off from it at any angle you please, and in dealing with snakes this is an advantage, if Rikki-tikki had only known, he was doing a much more dangerous thing than fighting Nag, for Karait is so small, and can turn so quickly, that unless Rikki bit him close to the back of the head, he would get the return stroke in his eye or his lip, though Rikki did not know, either way his eyes were all red and he rocked back and forth, looking for a good place to hold, finally Karait struck out, but Rikki jumped sideways and tried to run in, but the wicked little dusty gray head lashed within a fraction of his shoulder and he had to jump over the body, and the head followed his heels close, at the same time Teddy shouted to the house, “oh look here, our mongoose is killing a snake” he informs and Rikki-tikki heard a scream from Meshua, Sanjay ran out with a stick, but by the time he came up, Karait had lunged out once too far, and Rikki-tikki had sprung, jumped on the snake’s back, dropped his head far between his forelegs, bitten as high up the back as he could get hold and rolled away, the bite paralyzed Karait and Rikki-tikki was just going to eat him up from the tail, after the custom of his family at dinner when he remembered that a full meal makes a slow mongoose, and if he wanted all his strength and quickness ready, he must keep himself thin. Eventually it was over: Rikki had finished Karait and he went away for a dust bath under the castor-oil bushes while Sanjay beat the dead Karait. “What is the use of that? I have settled it all” he wonders from watching and then Meshua picked him up from the dust and hugged him, crying that he had saved Teddy from death, and Sanjay said that he was a providence, Jumeirah was awestruck while Rahhar was quite proud and Teddy looked on with big scared eyes, Rikki-tikki was rather amused at all the fuss, which, of course, he did not understand: Meshua might just as well have petted Teddy for playing in the dust, but either way Rikki was thoroughly enjoying himself. That night at dinner, walking to and fro among the wine-glasses on the table, he might have stuffed himself three times over with nice things. But he remembered Nag and Nagaina and though it was very pleasant to be patted and petted by Meshua, and to sit on either Jumeirah or Teddy’s shoulder, his eyes would get red from time to time, and he would go off into his long war cry of “Rikk-tikk-tikki-tikki-tchk!” which the humans noticed, and wondered what it could mean. After dinner Teddy carried him off to bed, and insisted on Rikki-tikki sleeping under his chin. Rikki-tikki was too well bred to bite or scratch, but as soon as Teddy was asleep he went off for his nightly walk around the house, and in the dark he ran up against an Asian house shrew named Chuchundra, who was foraging for bugs. Chuchundra is a broken-hearted little beast: he whimpers and cheeps all the night, trying to make up his mind to run into the middle of the room, but he never gets there. When he saw Rikki he cowers. "Don't kill me Rikki-tikki, don’t kill me!" he begs, "do you think a snake-killer kills muskrats?” said Rikki-tikki scornfully, "those who kill snakes get killed by snakes, and how am I to be sure that Nag won’t mistake me for you some dark night?” Chuchundra asks, "there’s not the least danger, but Nag is still out there, and I know you don’t go there” Rikki counters, "my cousin Chua told me-" Chuchundra began but suddenly stops, “told you what?” Rikki wonders, "sh! Nag is everywhere Rikki-tikki, you should have talked to Chua in the garden” Chuchundra advises, "I didn’t, so you must tell me quick Chuchundra, or I’ll bite you!” Rikki demands, Chuchundra sat down and cried till the tears rolled off his whiskers, “I am a very poor man: I never had spirit enough to run out into the middle of the room, sh! I mustn’t tell you anything, can’t you hear Rikki-tikki?” he sobs, Rikki-tikki listened: the house was as still as that, but he thought he could just catch the faintest scratch-scratch in the world: a noise as faint as that of a wasp walking on a window-pane, the dry scratch of a snake’s scales on brick-work, "that’s Nag or Nagaina” he said to himself, “and he is crawling into the bathroom sluice, you’re right Chuchundra; I should have talked to Chua” he apologizes to the shrew before he stole off to the bathroom, but there was nothing there, and then to a different bathroom, at the bottom of the smooth plaster wall there was a brick pulled out to make a sluice for the bath water, and as Rikki-tikki stole in by the masonry curb where the bath is put, he heard Nag and Nagaina whispering together outside in the moonlight, "when the house is emptied of people, the rest will have to go away, and then this land will be our own again, go in quietly, and remember that the big man who killed Karait is the first one to bite, then come out and tell me, and we will hunt for Rikki-tikki together” Nagaina strategizes, "but are you sure that there is anything to be gained by killing the people?” asked Nag, "everything, when there were no people in the bungalow, did we have any mongoose in the garden? so long as the bungalow is empty, we are king and queen of the area; and remember that as soon as our eggs in the melon bed hatch (as they may tomorrow), our children will need room and quiet” Nagaina states, "I had not thought of that, I will go, but there is no need that we should hunt for Rikki-tikki afterward, I will kill the big man and his wife, and the children and old one if I can, and come away quietly, then the bungalow will be empty, and the other humans will go” Nag considers, Rikki-tikki tingled all over with rage and hatred at this, and then Nag’s head came through the sluice, and his five feet of cold body followed it, angry as he was, Rikki-tikki was very frightened as he saw the size of the big cobra, Nag coiled himself up, raised his head and looked into the bathroom in the dark, and Rikki could see his eyes glitter, "now, if I kill him here, Nagaina will know; and if I fight him on the open floor, the odds are in his favor, what am I to do?” said Rikki-tikki-tavi, while Nag waved to and fro, and then Rikki-tikki heard him drinking from the biggest water-jar that was used to fill the bath, "that is good" said the snake, “now when Karait was killed, the big man had a stick, he may have that stick still, but when he comes in to bathe in the morning he will not have a stick, I shall wait here till he comes, Nagaina, do you hear me? I shall wait here in the cool till daytime” he strategizes while also informing his mate, but there was no answer from outside, so Rikki-tikki knew Nagaina had gone away, Nag coiled himself down coil by coil, around the bulge at the bottom of the water jar and Rikki-tikki stayed still as death, after an hour he began to move, muscle by muscle, toward the jar, Nag fell asleep and Rikki-tikki looked at his big back, wondering which would be the best place for a good hold, “if I don’t break his back at the first jump, he can still fight, and if he fights, O Rikki!” he moans and looked at the thickness of the neck below the hood, but that was too much for him; and a bite near the tail would only make Nag savage, “it must be the head; the head above the hood, and when I am once there, I must not let go” he deduces, then he jumped, the head was lying a little clear of the water jar, under the curve of it, and as his teeth met, Rikki braced his back against the bulge of the red earthenware to hold down the head: this gave him just one second’s purchase and he made the most of it, then he was battered to and fro as a rat is shaken by a dog: to and fro on the floor, up and down, and around in great circles, but his eyes were red and he held on as the body cart-whipped over the floor, upsetting the tin dipper and the soap dish and the flesh brush, and banged against the tin side of the bath, as he held he closed his jaws tighter and tighter, for he made sure he would be banged to death, and, for the honor of his family, he preferred to be found with his teeth locked, he was dizzy, aching, and felt shaken to pieces when something went off like a thunderclap just behind him: a hot wind knocked him senseless and red fire singed his fur: Sanjay and Rahhar had been wakened by the noise, and the former had fired both barrels of a shotgun into Nag just behind the hood, Rikki-tikki held on with his eyes shut, for now he was quite sure he was dead, but the cobra did not move, and Sanjay picked him up and said “it’s the mongoose again: the little chap has saved our lives now”, then Meshua came in with a very white face, and saw what was left of Nag, and Rikki-tikki dragged himself to Teddy’s bedroom and spent half the rest of the night shaking himself tenderly to find out whether he really was broken into forty pieces, as he fancied. Stay tuned for Rikki-Tikki-Tavi's Origin, Chapter three Gallery Category:Fanfiction